Blackcap Blog

Published at 08:12 on 18 September 2018

This strikes me as a strange niche for an online business. They are admittedly trying to address the main problem with ordering tires online: how to install them. But how well that will end up working strikes me as uncertain.

It still compels consumers to have to deal with two businesses to get a new set of tires. Ever since selling tires for automobiles became a business proposition, retailers in that industry have bundled installation and sales. I suspect that’s probably for a good reason.

Selling tires over the Internet sounds like it might be a better proposition for a business-to-business venture to me: focus on selling tires and help marketing tires at a competitive price to garages.

It all makes me wonder if this isn’t simply a sign of yet another dot.com bubble hitting its peak.

Published at 11:11 on 16 September 2018

It happened again: a business I deal with that regularly bills me for an ongoing service asked me to update my billing information, because the credit card number I had furnished them expires this month. Fair enough, but when I tried to log onto their site, it rejected my password. I know I was using the correct password, because I use a password manager to keep track of such things.

As I began, this is hardly the first time this has happened. It’s inevitably for a site I don’t visit very often. My guess is that there is some sort of logic bomb coded into many sites, which proclaims a password stale if it is not used regularly enough. This is the case despite there being no password expiration policy (I never got any such email, and as usual the system simply let me “reset” the password using the same old one I’ve been using).

It’s strange behavior. If a password is old enough not to trust, wouldn’t you want to simply expire it, and demand a new one? And if you’re going to expire someone’s password, wouldn’t you want to send a warning email before it expires?

Published at 21:20 on 13 September 2018

As I wrote recently, their laptops now mostly suck. Now their smartphones are starting to suck. Make that their smartphones are starting to suck more, because smartphones have always sucked. And their iPads now suck too, now that they’re programmed to deliberately brick themselves when you travel.

There’s definitely a trend going here, and it’s not a good one.

Published at 21:10 on 7 September 2018

I got a fancy new top-of-the-line MacBook at my new job. It disappoints me:

1. It is deficient in ports and connectors; there is no longer a dedicated power connector; one must use one of the USB connectors to connect a power cord, and
2. That latter fact means that the power cord has a USB-C connector on it, not a MagSafe connector.

It is beyond me how anyone could be so big of an idiot to not realize that (2) is just about the worst idea since New Coke. MagSafe connectors were one of the best things about Apple laptops, full stop. I can’t count how many times they saved a laptop of mine from crashing to the floor. And now this advantage is gone from most of Apple’s highest end machines.

Apparently Apple started this idiocy in late 2015. Until this week, I had been blissfully unaware of it, thanks to being a cheapskate who purchases lower-end laptops (and then only when the previous one dies and spare parts are unavailable).

Were Jobs still alive, the idiot who proposed such an idea would doubtless have been the victim of one of Jobs’ famous temper tantrums. And the idiot would have deserved it.

Thankfully, there’s a company out there dedicated to giving Mac users back what Apple took away. I plan to request one of their adapters; it should be a cheap insurance policy against my laptop meeting the floor at high speed.

Published at 17:53 on 6 September 2018

If you use an address book, Apple Mail can be very aggressive about auto-completion, to the point that your ability to send messages to an arbitrary address ends up being seriously compromised. There’s a simple workaround to this problem: enclose the address in angle brackets, e.g. <user@host.com>.

There’s an old discussion thread on apple.com (without any resolution) about this, but not much else, so I figured I’d put it up here just in case it gets indexed and ends up being useful to someone.

Yes, I’m using Apple Mail again… for now… and only on my new work computer. That’s because others there report it interoperates better with their mail server than Thunderbird. I have the sneaky feeling that I’ll bail on Apple Mail within a month or two, but might as well be a good sport and give it an honest chance.

Keywords: Apple, Mail, address book, autocomplete, disable.

Published at 17:59 on 16 July 2018

Why? It requires people to register using their real names, and encourages them to post their photo in their profile. I doubt they intended it do be bigot-friendly, but intent matters little: it is bigot-friendly.

More than likely Airbnb’s awful design is the result of the privileged, affluent, mostly white “tech bro” culture: Airbnb’s designers weren’t even aware of the bigotry problem when they designed the platform. And to the extent they are aware, they seem to be in denial about how serious the problem is:

“The photos are on the platform for a reason,” King said. “It really does help to aid in the trust between the guest and the host . . . You want to make sure that the guest who shows up at your door is the person you’ve been communicating with.”

The problem is so common and pervasive that there’s even a phrase for it: “Airbnb while Black.”

Thankfully, there seem to be better alternatives such as Innclusive.com, a site started by a Black guy after he ran into discrimination on Airbnb.

 

Published at 22:33 on 6 June 2018

My iPad decided to randomly demand all sorts of security information (which I don’t have committed to memory and never will, because I have better things to memorize than random bits of data like that). Worse yet, it then decided to demand I boot one of my Macs (which of course I didn’t have with me at the time) to complete the process of allowing me to use it again.

I think this is Apple’s way of punishing me for attempting to use the Internet while in Canada, which they seem to regard as a sign of fraud and theft because (gasp!) it’s a foreign country. Well, yes it is, but Apple should take a look at the fucking map some time: it’s as big a deal for someone to travel from Seattle to Kamloops, BC as it is for someone to travel from Chicago to the Upper Peninsula.

An iPad is a smaller and lighter than a full-featured computer, which makes it significantly more portable than a full-featured computer, which in turn means it is likely to be the device someone takes with them on a trip, while leaving larger and bulkier computing devices behind at home. Therefore it is unrealistic to demand someone follow the process of booting and using another of his computers to re-enable an arbitrarily disabled iPad. This is so obvious that it feels somewhat painful to have to type it.

All of which serves to reinforce the idea that it will be a cold day in Hades before I ever get a smartphone stupidphone. Why would I want a phone that randomly decides to brick itself while I am on a trip?

Published at 14:58 on 24 May 2018

I’m at SeaTac airport, using their wireless network, and Gmail is for once not using my use of a new network as a pretext to lock me out. This is a pleasant surprise, albeit one I do not expect to continue once I am in Orange County.

Published at 10:41 on 18 May 2018

It’s always sucked because Google profiles you based on your emails, but Gmail gets suckier and suckier as time passes due to their security measures. Every time I do something the least bit unusual (like connect from a new wireless network) it blocks my IMAP logins and raises a security alert.

Wednesday, Gmail locked me out because I was coming in via the UW network as a guest there. Today, I’m on the road, and Gmail is locking me out because I’m using my old iPad plus my Karma hotspot to access it instead of my laptop and the very same Karma hotspot.

I can re-establish access by logging in via the Web, but:

1. That totally defeats the purpose of my having an email client and using IMAP in the first place. I happen to like the fact that IMAP lets me use the same email client (with the exact same user interface) for all my email accounts.
2. IMAP also uses less Internet resources than an interactive web site, which can be a plus in marginal situations (which do routinely happen when connecting to the Internet via a cellular network).
3. If their web site lets me in, then IMAP should logically let me in as well.
4. None of my other email providers have fascistic security like this.

I suppose Google hates the fact that using IMAP, because it implies I’m using a dedicated email client, which lets me freely choose email providers yet have the same consistent UI for each. Google apparently wants me to use their Web UI and get used to it, so I’m locked in to their service. In my book, that’s yet another reason to dislike Google.

As it is, I’ve been slowly moving to using my Apple me.com account for most of my mail, anyhow (because I don’t like how Google profiles me). Most of what goes to my Gmail inbox is from mailing lists that I simply haven’t bothered to cut over yet.

I guess it all shows that it’s time to continue with the gradual process of moving away from Gmail.

Published at 18:16 on 15 May 2018

It’s so-called “talent management software” that many HR departments use. It’s also a piece of total garbage. Typical Taleo experience:

1. Follow a link from Indeed to the Employer’s site, which uses Taleo.
2. Be blocked from going further because you must log on.
3. If you don’t have an account, you must register, and when you do that, Taleo “forgets” the job that brought you there. You must go back to the linking site and follow the link again.
4. If you do have an account, it still doesn’t matter. Taleo will virtually always claim the job doesn’t exist anymore after you log on. Again, you must go back to the linking site and follow the link again.
5. You will then be prompted to enter, by hand, basically your entire résumé. You cannot just cut and paste it in one fell swoop, because Taleo is coded to break everything into zillions of fields (employer, address, phone, dates worked, etc.).
6. You will then be asked to upload your résumé.
7. Odds are, you will never receive a call back, because you failed to include some obscure keyword that Taleo was insisting be there for the job in question.
8. None of the work you did will matter for any other employer that uses Taleo, as there is no information sharing happening. You will have to key in your entire résumé by hand again.

Regarding forcing users to register, why the fuck do that? Isn’t the goal of advertising anything (be it a job vacancy or pork chops at the supermarket) to attract people? Forcing applicants to register just says “go away, we’re really not that serious about filling this position.”

Regarding uploading a résumé, this is a completely reasonable thing to ask. Thing is, most every other job application system out there can parse a résumé (there’s stock libraries for doing this; it’s a solved problem). Only Taleo forces you to key in the thing from scratch, anew. Again, this basically amounts to a “go away, we’re really not that interested” sign on a virtual door.

How unreasonable Taleo is may be underscored by comparing it to the experience of applying to a job in the pre-Internet days: You’d compose a cover letter, and stuff that along with your résumé (copied on a copier, not typed anew for each employer) in an envelope, put a stamp on it, and drop it in a mailbox.

Taleo may also be shown to be unreasonable by comparing it to Indeed.com, which lets employers manage applications (if they pay Indeed for that service). You get asked for your contact information, get a box in which to compose a cover letter, and get asked to upload your résumé. A complete analogue of what you did in the snail-mail days (absent paying postage and sometimes waiting most of a week for delivery to complete); simple and totally reasonable.

Or compare Taleo to competitors like Jobvite, which prompt you for your résumé first, then parse it and populate the form fields automatically, allowing you to correct any mistakes the parser made. A little more work, but still pretty reasonable, even if it does go through the unnecessary step of forcing you to register and log in.

The mystery, to repeat, is why this piece of absolute garbage even exists. It’s got to be crap for the HR people to use, as well (software is very seldom crap in just one area; if one part of a package is crap, the crap quality typically extends package-wide). There’s so many better options already out there.

If market forces worked like capitalism fans theorize they did, Taleo would have been compelled by such forces to fix their garbage software or would have gone out of business years ago. Yet Taleo remains, one of those counterexamples to the assertion that markets inevitably foster excellence.